Jane Miller: Another controversy involving Roush, Waltrip

Sunday

Mar 30, 2008 at 12:01 AMMar 30, 2008 at 9:30 AM

In the Fast Lane racing column.

Where there's controversy, one can often find Jack Roush or Michael Waltrip.

This week, they're both in it, with both feet.

Roush, involved in a flap at the Atlanta race over a postrace violation on Carl Edwards' winning Ford, is embroiled in a finger-pointing match with Waltrip, known for a major infraction at last year's Daytona 500.

At issue is a sway bar, which Roush says contains proprietary information and Waltrip says found its way into his team's equipment inventory by mistake.

None other than Jeff Gordon called the brouhaha "hilarious" and couldn't believe such a big deal was being made.

Roush thinks it is worth causing a stink.

"A theft did occur," he said. "The part was recovered. It was a proprietary part. It was within NASCAR's rules. It was a legal part and it was not returned at the point in time when people within that team would have realized that they had a part. They altered the appearance of the part by changing the paint on it or blasting the unique paint that we had off of it and it is back and it is in our inventory and we are still considering what, if any, legal action we'll seek in the public sector."

Waltrip said he didn't really understand what all the fuss was about and has always admired Roush.

"Jack helped define what ownership in this garage ought to look like," said Waltrip, himself an owner of a three-car team. "He was the first one to really, truly embrace the multi-car team and understand that more people working on the same project, the better you could do.

"I've always looked up to Jack and hate that he's all spun out on this. To me, anything that I understand how to build can't be too proprietary and I think I could make a sway bar in an afternoon if I was forced to do so."

Sadler hurt

Elliott Sadler may have to use a relief driver during today's race at Martinsville and his Saturday's Craftsman Truck race winner, Dennis Setzer, on standby.

Sadler injured his lower back on Wednesday and aggravated it again later in the day. By Saturday, he said his back was still sore and planned to treat it with ice and anti-inflammatory medicine.

"Right now, I feel like that I can go maybe halfway (today)," Sadler said. "There's a 50-50 chance of going the whole way. Dennis is going to stay and hang out with us ... If I need him, then we'll go to him."

Sadler said he is most uncomfortable while sitting so the team has changed the padding in the seat to try to make him more comfortable.

Two-for-two

Galesburg, Ill., resident Rickie Jones qualified for each of the first two races he attempted in NHRA Pro Stock.

Jones, whose car is owned by his father, Rick Jones, took the 10th starting spot for today's O'Reilly Spring Nationals at Baytown, Texas, with an elapsed time of 6.680 seconds at 206.39 mph.

He'll face 2007 Pro Stock champion Jeg Coughlin in the first round. Two weeks ago at Gainsville, Fla., Jones qualified ninth and faced Jason Line in the first round but was too quick off the starting line by .001 of a second.

Just right

The recent unification of the two open-wheel racing series had some people wondering if, for the first time since the split, that there might be too many cars.

IRL president of operations and competition Brian Barnhart said he doesn't think that will be the case.

"You have 33 at Indy, we're at 28 at all the other tracks with the exception of Milwaukee, Iowa and Richmond, I think we're 26. So even at that point, I think if we're 26 full-time, we should be good most everywhere we run."

General admission

For the first time this year, Indianapolis Motor Speedway is offering a general admission season pass good for all three major events at the Speedway.

The pass costs $150 and covers the Indianapolis 500 on May 25 and the two preceding days, all three days of the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard weekend, July 25-27, and the three days of the Red Bull MotoGP weekend, Sept. 12-14.

General admission tickets have never been issued for the Brickyard until now.